That's what Saoirse said to me this morning, running up to me with little plastic sunglasses on her face, upside down. That's the first time I've heard her say that sentence, but not the last, I feel certain.I asked Rowan to pause in their game to let me take this picture of her:

Saoirse ran over, said "Sha-Sha turn!" This is how she wanted her picture taken:

We got to spend some time on the playground again today, before the thunderstorm hit.

So today was the first really hot day of spring '09. It was above 80 degrees and sunny. Chris has been studying full-time lately, anticipating starting work on May4th. But who could sit in a library all afternoon on a day like today? So he left early and we did our best to wear the kids out. (I mean, we spent an afternoon sharing quality time...)

We went to the park across the street for a while. But we do that every single day that the weather allows, we wanted to get out of our neighborhood. Saoirse wasn't as thrilled with that, because she was really enjoying pushing the whole family on the merry-go-round. If Chris tried to put his foot down to help, she'd run over and shove it up, saying, "NO! On there!" She liked showing us how "stong" she is.

When we convinced her, we headed to the Arb. Of course, Piggy had to go too.

We headed down by the river, and the girls even got to wade a little.

The girls also spent some time picking up pinecones (or "combs" as they call them) and stuffing them through the slats of a bench.

Next time we go to the Arb, I hope the trees have gotten leaves, because it was HOT today and Mommy could have used some shade.

I've been looking forward to Reema and I getting our kids together for years. Although the logistics of getting two sets of twins out of the house for a morning concert at the library can be daunting, today we did it!! It was the first time that Reem brought them out alone to something like this, and she was (of course) a rock star. There were no meltdowns, no screaming, no disasters. The kids all seemed to enjoy themselves, Saoirse and Rowan were fascinated by Sahil and Sareena. Rowan gave each of them kisses, even. So much fun!

The twin club we belong to had their Easter Egg hunt last weekend, a full week after Easter. It didn't matter to Rowan and Saoirse, since they don't know when Easter is anyway. But it did make it harder to get in the mood. The girls both got the hang of looking for eggs and putting them in their baskets right away. Unlucky for them, by the time we hit this party I was already fed up with candy, so they didn't eat a single piece of the Easter candy that was in the eggs. Oh well.

Here's Saoirse playing at the playdough table with some other little twins.

After the party I tried to change Rowan, and she insisted on adding pants but not taking off her dress. Here she is chilling a little with Daddy before dinner.

A couple weeks ago, when the April snow hit here in Ann Arbor (and what the hell is up with that, by the way?), we lost power. It was out for more than 24 hours, and since it was snowing it got really cold pretty quickly in the house. So we went and spent the night in a hotel. One on hand, not living close enough to family to just go to someone else's house when our power is out is a pain. (mostly financially) The good thing is that we get a little mini-vacation, which we all enjoy.

We spent some quality time in the pool while we were there. The girls are getting braver all the time about the water. Rowan wanted me to hold her hands on the side of the pool and let her "jump" in, dipping her about chest deep. Then she'd say "Out!" and I'd lift her back up. We did this for about a half hour, until my poor back protested too much, and we had to quit. Then she went to Chris in the water.

The last picture is the next day, when we were back in our house. I just thought Rowan looked too cute in her pigtails. :)

There's a whole series of books that the girls love. If you give a mouse a cookie. If you give a pig a pancake. Etc..I bought a collection of them while we were in California last fall, and Rowan claimed that book as her own. She cries if Saoirse touches it. She calls the book "mouse cookie." Last weekend they read it at story time at the Barnes and Noble by us, and Cookie Mouse came to the story-time and brought the kids a cookie. I figured we had to be there. It was like if the cast of Lost showed up at the movie store down the street, Chris and I would need to be there, you know? So we went. The girls loved it. Rowan wanted to touch the mouse a million times, she didn't really care for the story part, she just wanted to get to the mouse. They loved the drawing and the cookie, too.

Look at Saoirse sit so quietly and follow along in her book. :)

Here they are both listening. Don't they look teeny? Notice the other set of twins to their right. Isn't this generation strange? Is being a twin even going to seem unusual to them?

So the pre-Easter bunny is still hanging on. Saoirse is getting braver every day, both girls "home-um" whenever they can. (That's "hold him" in Rowan-speak) It looks like this bunny may actually make it to Easter in our house.The last photo is Saoirse playing in Jack's cage while I clean the bottom part. She climbed in the door, lay down to "sleep" and is asking us to close the door. She loves this and runs for it as soon as we take the cage apart.

Today Chris left the house early in the morning and only came back for dinner. Now that most of the job hunting stuff is wrapping up, he's spending the days studying for oral boards. So today I was totally alone with the girls for a whole day, without him in the house at all. That hasn't happened much in the last few months. I forgot how long the last few hours are. I forgot how much energy it takes to entertain toddlers without a break, completely alone for so long.

We did, though, have a good day. It was really warm, so we got outside for a run/walk. (I walked, they slept in the stroller) We ran some errands and had lunch together on campus.

Here's the saving grace of staying home with almost two year olds compared to last spring. I was folding some laundry and the girls were in the other room. I went to look for them, and here's what I found: